2022 Trends to Watch: AR and VR

George Jijiashvili

Principal Analyst, Games

George leads research into video games and augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) hardware and content. As a member of Omdia’s games, music, and consumer AI team, he produces insight into his research areas through regular reports, market sizing, and forecasting.

Based in London, George focuses on areas including the video game market, cloud gaming, subscription services, AR/VR, and wearable technology. He is a regular speaker at major technology exhibitions and is a respected industry commentator, regularly quoted in mainstream publications. Prior to joining Omdia in 2019, George worked as a senior analyst at CCS Insight for six years. He holds a degree in international business with Russian from the University of Westminster

Matthew Bailey

Principal Analyst, Media and Entertainment

As part of the Omdia channels, programming and advertising team, Matthew Bailey covers the global digital media sector, with a specific interest in digital media monetization strategies, ad-supported online video, digital advertising, ad-funded games, and games-related video content and platforms.

In his role as a Principal Analyst, his main research interests are in digital content and advertising. This includes mobile, social, and ad-supported online video (AVOD), within which Matthew provides analysis of key developments in online video content creation, vendor monetization strategies, and digital video advertising. He also writes on adjacent developments in the broader digital advertising market, OTT video, digital publishing, social media, video games, and next-generation forms of advertising, media and entertainment. Prior to joining Omdia, formerly Ovum, in 2015, Matthew worked as a senior research analyst at MarketLine. He holds a degree in English language and literature from the University of Leeds.

Guillermo Escofet

Principal Analyst, Digital Consumer Platforms

As part of Omdia’s digital consumer platforms team, Guillermo covers mobile app ecosystems, including the mobile augmented reality market and aspects of the mobile games market; bundling partnerships between over-the-top (OTT) players and communication service providers; and carrier billing across media and other verticals.

Guillermo focuses on monetization and partnership strategies, and he sizes and monitors consumer spend transacted via app stores, advertiser spend on in-app advertisements, media and other digital services revenue derived from wholesale or revenue-share bundling deals with communications service providers, and the wider market for carrier-billed OTT products and services. Guillermo has a long pedigree at Informa covering mobile media. Before joining the company in 2002, he worked as a business and current affairs journalist. He is fluent in English, Spanish, and Catalan. Guillermo holds a history and politics degree from the University of Warwick in the UK.

Seth Wallis-Jones

Senior Analyst, Digital Consumer Platforms

As part of Omdia’s digital consumer platforms team, Seth produces reports on their investments and funding of startups, their merger and acquisition activity, performance and platform developments such as new product directions, and the impact of regulatory changes upon them.

Prior to joining Omdia, formerly IHS Markit, Seth was a telecoms research analyst at the World Markets Research Centre (WMRC) in 2006. After his social media analyst roles with Kantar, Seth returned to the telecoms team at IHS Markit in 2015.

Seth holds a Master of Science in human communications and computing from the University of Bath, UK, where he researched on design optimization and usability testing of mobile devices. After graduation, his roles developed from usability analytics toward the research analyst role, initially looking at emerging mobile services and operator portals.